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Bugatti loses its shine to Porsche

QUESTION MARKS hang over the future of Bugatti, maker of the world’s fastest and most expensive car, after the resignation of its president, Thomas Bscher, writes Ray Hutton.

A wealthy German banker, he brought the extraordinary Bugatti Veyron to the market and, as a former GT racing champion and owner of a McLaren F1  the Veyron’s predecessor as the world’s fastest car  gave the project much-needed credibility. His contacts and reputation were responsible for many of the 145 sales so far, at a pretax price of €1.2m (£800,000).

The Veyron and revival of the famous prewar Bugatti marque was the brainchild of Ferdinand Piech, then chief executive of Volkswagen. Meeting his ambitions of 1,000 bhp from the 8-litre turbocharged engine and a top speed of 250mph was a difficult challenge for Volkswagen’s engineers and the Veyron suffered several setbacks before it was ready for production at the end of 2005